


Monster

by Lunarium



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Galra Keith (Voltron), Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Some Galra have lycanthropy, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 17:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12587068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/pseuds/Lunarium
Summary: There was something about Keith’s heritage he was better off not knowing about.





	Monster

**Author's Note:**

> Short tale inspired by this lovely [fanart](http://art-by-nicolas.tumblr.com/post/161054616764/pain-sorrow-loss-rage-anger) by art-by-nicolas. :)
> 
> This also fits well with my H/C Bingo prompt "unwanted transformation."

There was not one single word in any language that could describe the pain in Keith’s chest. Shiro sat on the cold floor a few feet before him, blood seeping through his torn clothes. His lips were split, one eye blackened, long claw marks over his thighs. His bionic arm had been completely torn off. 

But what was perhaps the worse of it was how he regarded Keith. He leaned back as if seeking to put as much distance between himself and Keith. Shiro, who every Paladin had looked up to, who was willing to fight Galra soldiers three times his size to the death for one of his friends.  
He cowered before Keith. 

“Shiro, I’m sorry…please…” 

“No…get away from me…” 

Keith stopped, the words like a painful kick to the stomach. Shiro never used such words against him. He regarded him as a threat. Not even learning that Keith shared the same heritage as the people who enslaved and tormented him for a year tainted the love he had for Keith.

But this…this was different. This made Keith…

_Monster._

*

Lotor’s interfering in the battle had been the reason Keith still lived. Hate turned to respect after they interrogated Lotor and learned more of the exiled prince. He was diplomatic. He, like Keith, was of mixed birth. He understood Keith in a moment when it might take days for his closest friends — his found family.

Lotor had changed things for the better for them all. Helped expose many truths. Operation Kuron became a term known to them. The man who Keith had saved, a man he wished to believe was Shiro while deep down a voice whispered doubt, was exposed for a fraud that was not of his doing. But the man — who took on the name of Ryou, Shiro’s father — with Lotor’s help, led them to Shiro’s true whereabouts. He reunited them. He was…kind. 

Perhaps Keith was stupid to trust him, but perhaps Lotor’s desire to dismantle his father resulted in a need to extend a hand in friendship to his father’s enemies. And that was too good of an offer. The poetic justice. To see the entire empire fall by hand of the emperor’s son working among the rebels. Shiro believed in him. He gave no reason to doubt him. He spared the life of Ryou. He respected every fighter in the coalition. 

Together, they strategized and fought and enjoyed victory after victory. Together they united the entire universe against the empire. 

It was too good to last. 

Lotor had encouraged them to continue with the spectacle shows. Keith hated them, hated being in the spotlight, but the shows helped them gather supporters and fighters. They needed to keep at it. 

It would be the first time Keith would appear before an entire world. And Lotor’s first as their ally. 

His honeyed words swayed them. Keith should have bailed out then. But he _didn’t know_. 

There was something about Keith’s heritage he was better off not knowing about. Earth’s moon had never affected him. It would take a special sort of moon, like the one that rotated around the planet they were visiting that evening. 

“Some Galra like myself and the Blade you may trust,” Lotor was speaking into the microphone before motioning towards Keith. “But I fear others…for others, I regret a distrust in them is only natural. They cannot help it.” 

He turned towards the darkened skies and Keith followed his gaze in mild confusion. The clouds parted, revealing a coppery moon. Something stirred within him. The world before him fell away. Eyes glazed over to the back of his head as a pounding stirred, a headache that grew worse by the second. Fire consumed his veins. 

What happened next was all a blur. 

Later, Allura and the rest had to fill him in. He didn’t want to know all of the details. 

Screams continue to echo inside Keith’s mind till this day, till now, as he sat there trying to comfort Shiro. Lotor had evacuated everyone, Keith later learned. Save for Shiro, the man Keith loved above all else, the man Lotor had aided him in finding again. 

Lotor had left only Shiro behind to contend with the beast. 

Keith remembered none of it, although bits of his love still clung under his fingernails. He didn’t want to know how he hurt him. But he also wanted to know so he could make it up to him. 

“Shiro…I’m sorry.” 

He remembered all the times Shiro had frozen on the spot, terrified as his mind whirred to some nightmare of the past as an enemy came charging at him. He was always there to help him through it. And now…

“Shiro, please, you are my greatest hope…” 

Shiro’s eyes — pupils tiny dots — didn’t stray from him. His body wouldn’t stop shaking, his chest heaving. The answer that came was too small, too broken, that it nearly shattered Keith. “Please, stay away from me!”


End file.
